The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper
Published 1945 · 359,657 words · about 25 hours at an average pace · History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics & Society
How hard is The Open Society and Its Enemies to read?
The Open Society and Its Enemies scores 56 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 48 out of 100
- Philosophical vocabulary. Engages deeply with Plato, Hegel, Marx.
- Sentence structure: 42 out of 100
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- High-level political philosophy and epistemology.
- Information density: 55 out of 100
- Dense philosophical argument across two volumes.
- Narrative indirection: 12 out of 100
- Argumentative structure. Chronological within each volume.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- The open society as symbol of democratic values.
- Ironic distance: 18 out of 100
- Polemical passion controlled by logical rigor.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- The defense of the open society is the clear thesis.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Two volumes. Many interleaved philosophical arguments.
How The Open Society and Its Enemies is regarded
The Open Society and Its Enemies holds a literary regard score of 83 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.